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“Real Sports” covers “Work to Ride”, an inner-city polo program

Opening doors for those who have no access, providing exposure to new experiences and helping people develop new skills and perspectives are things that everyone should aim to do across all walks of life.

Opening doors for those who have no access, providing exposure to new experiences and helping people develop new skills and perspectives are things that everyone should aim to do across all walks of life. Well that’s what’s happening in the City of Brotherly Love, and it’s done through the sport of polo.

“Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” showcases the “Work To Ride” program, which provides inner-city Philly kids with the opportunity to learn how to ride horses and play polo. Per release:

REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL, TVs most honored sports journalism series, returns with more enterprising features and reporting when its all-new 230th edition debuts TUESDAY, MAY 24 (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.

*Work to Ride. For more than two decades, groups of at-risk kids from low-income Philadelphia neighborhoods have sought refuge in the unlikeliest of sports polo. Lezlie Hiner has run her Work to Ride program since 1994, welcoming dozens of disadvantaged youths to suburban Fairmont Park, where they learn how to ride horses and play polo. The children, ages seven to 19, earn their keep by performing general maintenance in the stables, cleaning and grooming the horses. The payoff comes when they get a chance to compete against other teams, where they often hold their own against more privileged counterparts.

REAL SPORTS correspondent Mary Carillo first met the extraordinary team and their warm-hearted coach in 2003. Kareem Rosser, then 11 years old, was one of the children featured. Today, Rosser is a graduate of Colorado State University, where he was captain of the polo team, which he led to a national championship in 2015, the schools first in 16 years. Carillo returns to Philadelphia and learns that the children of Work to Ride have won two national polo championships of their own, competing in polo tournaments across the country as well as in Nigeria.